VENUS VERTICORDIA.
(For a Picture.)
SHE hath the apple in her hand for thee, Yet almost in her heart would hold it back; She muses, with her eyes upon the track Of that which in thy spirit they can see. Haply, "Behold, he is at peace," saith she; "Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,- The wandering of his feet perpetually ! "
A little space her glance is still and coy;
But if she give the fruit that works her spell, Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.
Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell, And her far seas moan as a single shell,
And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.
PANDORA.
(For a Picture.)
WHAT of the end, Pandora? Was it thine, The deed that set these fiery pinions free? Ah! wherefore did the Olympian consistory In its own likeness make thee half divine? Was it that Juno's brow might stand a sign For ever? and the mien of Pallas be
A deadly thing? and that all men might see In Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine?
What of the end? These beat their wings at will, The ill-born things, the good things turned to ill,- Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited. Aye, clench the casket now! Whither they go Thou mayst not dare to think: nor canst thou know If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.
A SEA-SPELL.
(For a Picture)
HER lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell, The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. But to what sound her listening ear stoops she? What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear, In answering echoes from what planisphere, Along the wind, along the estuary?
She sinks into her spell: and when full soon Her lips move and she soars into her song, What creatures of the midmost main shall throng In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune : Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die?
ASTARTE SYRIACA
(For a Picture.)
MYSTERY: lo! betwixt the sun and moon Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune: And from her neck's inclining flower-stem leun Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean The pulse of hearts to the spheres' dominant tune.
Torch-bearing, her sweet ministers compel
All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea The witnesses of Beauty's face to be: That face, of Love's all-penetrative spell Amulet, talisman, and oracle,-
Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery.
THOU fill'st from the winged chalice of the soul Thy lamp, O Memory, fire-winged to its goal.
BEHOLD Fiammetta, shown in Vision here.
Gloom-girt 'mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she stands; And as she sways the branches with her hands, Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer,
In separate petals shed, each like a tear;
While from the quivering bough the bird expands His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands
Life shaken and shower'd and flown, and Death drawn
All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air: The angel circling round her aureole
Shimmers in flight against the tree's grey bole: While she, with reassuring eyes most fair, A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere
On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul.
"THERE is a budding morrow in midnight:
So sang our Keats, our English nightingale. And here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale In London's smokeless resurrection-light, Dark breaks to dawn.
But o'er the deadly blight
Of Love deflowered and sorrow of none avail, Which makes this man gasp and this woman quail, Can day from darkness ever again take flight?
Ah! gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge, Under one mantle sheltered 'neath the hedge
In gloaming courtship? And, O God! to-day He only knows he holds her ;—but what part Can life now take? She cries in her locked heart,-"Leave me I do not know you-go away!"
THE thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore Still bear young leaflets half the summer through ; From when the robin 'gainst the unhidden blue Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core, The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar Through summer silence. Still the leaves come new; Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.
Within the branching shade of Reverie
Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd. Lo! tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look, She dreams; till now on her forgotten book Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.
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